Bill Wyman was a member of The Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1993, when he decided to leave the band. The bassist was a good friend of the other members and had a very good relationship with the late Brian Jones, who passed away not long after being fired by the group. Over the decades, he has spoken fondly of Jones and once said that, in his opinion, he was the most intelligent member of the group.
Why Bill Wyman thinks Brian Jones was The Rolling Stones’ most intelligent member
“Whenever the Stones would go on tour, me and Brian would always share a room. He could be really sweet and lovely and was more intelligent than any of the others. He was very articulate. But he could also be a little bastard sometimes. He had an evil streak which a lot of people only remember him for. Brian would do nasty things, like steal my girl or something one night. So he’d do the dirty, then you’d end up forgiving him because he’d have that little innocent, angelic smile: ‘Sorry, man. I didn’t mean it.” So you’d love him and hate him.’”
“I’ve always said good things about him because he was the creator of The Rolling Stones. I don’t care what you say about Mick and Keith, if it hadn’t have been for Brian they probably would have had a different band in Dartford, out in the sticks where they lived. They weren’t Londoners, though Mick always tries on his cockney accent, which he doesn’t deserve, really. The only working-class ones in the Stones were me and Charlie,” he said in an interview with Classic Rock in 2022.
Why Jones was fired from the Stones according to Bill
In an interview with Classic Rock, the band’s classic bassist Bill Wyman recalled why Jones ended up being fired. “Andrew Oldham (Manager) decided to get Mick and Keith to start writing songs because he realized that Mick, being the frontman, would probably be the most famous later. Brian originally got much more fan mail than the rest of us. All the girls went for Brian. But he was pushed aside.”
“Then Andrew stopped me, Brian and Charlie doing interviews, which also elevated Mick and Keith’s profile. Obviously it was ultimately beneficial for Mick and Keith to take on the music. But Brian, who I shared a room with at the time, was always a bit sad. (He was) upset that we weren’t doing the kind of music he really liked, because we started out doing real blues and he was a blues purist.”
(…) “There was no malice (when Brian was fired), they just got fed up with his drug taking. None of the rest of us took drugs. Well, Keith… They did a bit, but there was no heavy stuff for years. I never had any, nor did Charlie, we were always completely clean. We had responsibilities, so we behaved ourselves,” Bill Wyman said.